To Change Our Histories
by kailikaili
Summary: In which a character sees the end after the gods' judgement, in penance for speaking up against such atrocities they return to a previous time prior to their personal exit from Beacon, and must struggle to alter a future they recognize as uninhabitable. How well will they succeed? (spoilers up to V6E6, time travel idea inspired by Coeur Al'Aran's "Relic of the Future")


p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Grime fell from sodden boots as the person trudged through the snow. They were caked head to toe in muck and smelled of brine, sulfur, and blood. They'd arrived on the top of a hilltop far in the north of Mystral. They had no idea what the date was, how far back they'd gone, they just knew that the snow had not existed not two hours earlier where they had stood on the edge of the lake in a cavern where the god of creation had once resided. /span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Time travel sucked, they really hated it and wished their control over their circumstances had been better. But then again it wasn't their fault the two dragons decided on this punishment. They came upon a frozen lake, found the slight crack in the ice before breaking it with the hilt of a sword, one of the three other relics they managed to keep in their possession. They assumed the gods would expect them to summon them just a bit earlier in this time, assuming they found the fourth that is. Well, those bastardly gods would be sorely mistaken. The gods created humans to be so well, just the right amount of each of them. Good and bad. Right in the middle comes trickery and multifaceted goals, misunderstandings and contradictions. It truly was a gift, and a curse for those gods./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Regardless of their faith in humanity and Oscar, no Ozpin, no Omar's quest, the end would remain the same. Humanity was and acted just as they had created them for. It the gods' fault in reality. And the binary of good an evil meant that with all of the fascets of truths and ideas of worthiness within fulfilling societal requirements the human race would never achieve the same equality and harmony those gods wished for. She wondered truly whether they simply enjoyed watching the human race go crazy mad over power and ownership and ideology, besides she had to admit that would be far more entertaining than simply killing them off and creating a new race./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Which brought her to her predicament currently. Time didn't really exist much anymore, at least she wasn't cursed to be an immortal or worse, for her soul to wander from body to body, slowly subsuming another person's desires with her own whether they wished it or not. But she did wish she at least arrived back in a timeline where she had a sense of familiarity./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"She nearly froze as she stripped and jumped into the freezing lake, scrubbing the grime off her body and clothes as fast and vigorously as she could before climbing back out and turning blue. She had no provisions or supplies. Only four items remained besides her clothes, three relics, and her personal weapon. She hadn't even been able to grab keepsakes from the sides of her teammate's' lifeless bodies before they too turned to dust in the battlefield at the crest of the hill leading down to the old god of life's tree and the pool surrounding it. /span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"As they began walking through the snow again, in clothes torn and burnt, now soaked with icy water and freezing onto their body, they tried desperately not to ruminate on what had just transgressed./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Death, but more than death. Wartime and chaos, sides divided but realizing who their true enemies were only at the end. Not that it would have helped much, one could call their battle with Salem and her fraction to be a civil war ignoring the disastrous effects of the goal both searched for; the return of the gods to Remnant. Listening to Salem, they had come to the conclusion that her choice of Remnant was a fitting name, because it had come from her, her who still worked when Ozmar and his later lives had wallowed in self misery. Watching people they had fought for so many years come to realizations regarding the goal they searched for had been a harrowing experience. Seeing them all change, seeing them realize the erasures within their history and the futility of the goal. The relationships everyone redefined, the hatred towards Ozmar, their own personal contradiction regarding their relationship with the man named Oscar, the relationships that had high moments and low moments of grief. /span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"They pulled up a freezing hood over their face and briefly untied to patch over an eye before the skin attached itself to the patch too roughly. They froze as they walked through the forest hoping to run into a place with people./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Two days passed of walking before they came upon a set of road tracks. They'd gotten lucky that the grimm hadn't found them at all during their journey. Following, following, following. Survival was paramount. If they ever wanted to pass on their knowledge they had to live./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"A wagon passed them by, it slowed and the driver looked at the freezing figure on the road./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;""Hello traveler, are you looking for a ride? The nearest settlement isn't too far from here, maybe ten km east." /span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;""I appreciate the offer." They said, grabbing the hand with ice cold fingers and hitching themselves up and into the back of the wagon./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;""You eaten anything yet?" The driver asked./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"They shook their head wearily, "Two days without food."/span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;""My god, here eat some bread, it's not warm, but it should do. We'll get you back in and feed you some soup soon. Take some blankets they're in the back." The man ushered his traveler to wrap themselves in blankets. The traveler removed the majority of the icy clothes and wrapped themselves up in the blankets before devouring a slice of bread and a swig of hot tea./span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;"Eating again was difficult. As the driver took hold of the reigns he asked, "You got a name miss?"/span/p  
p style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 36px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #000000;"span style="font-kerning: none;""I'm no miss. My pronouns are they/them. Call me Rose."/span/p 


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